Last week, the Department of Energy, under President Obama, released a plan to expand hydropower by 50% through electrifying existing dams and emplacing pumped hydro storage at existing non-powered dams to facilitate more intermittent renewables like wind and solar onto the electric grid.

According to DOE’s Hydropower Vision, the United States could increase its hydropower electricity generation capacity from about 100 GW to 150 GW by 2050 by energizing existing dams (dams that presently have no ability to produce power), upgrading plants already producing power with more capacity, and constructing new pumped hydro storage facilities to support renewables.